


Debonair

by Janice_Lester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 03:11:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janice_Lester/pseuds/Janice_Lester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley muses on points sartorial.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Debonair

**Author's Note:**

> Contains casual references to demon-ly violence. Beta'd by the awesome and patient [](http://ellethill.livejournal.com/profile)[ellethill](http://ellethill.livejournal.com/), whose advice is much better than my ability to _take_ advice.

What can he say? Sometimes a gentleman—demonic or otherwise—just feels like a nice set of Savile Row shoulders. Crowley’s been patronising the same family-owned tailor’s shop there for a century and a half now, though he tries to keep his visits spaced out enough that the latest incarnation of Mr. Smith, venerable old head tailor, can believe he’s not seeing the same exact customer, unaltered, who walked in when he was an apprentice of seventeen. The occasional change of meat suit helps, of course. It’s not that Crowley’s afraid of scaring them if they figure out he’s the selfsame chap and not the dear chap’s spitting image of a great-grandson. It’s that he’s concerned that a fine old-fashioned tailor who becomes aware of the existence of demons might very well Deal himself out of the tailoring business and into something dreary and talent-wasting, like high officialdom in the Raj. Or rock music. Or the dot com bubble. The world doesn’t need any more artisans laying down their tools to become reality TV stars or high-flying real estate agents. So he watches his tongue, and he certainly doesn’t tell them that the measurements they have on file for their last “Mister Crowley” will be perfectly accurate for him now.

“I find myself in need of new handkerchiefs,” he confides, while his inseam is being determined. “Hand-stitched, of course. Who would you recommend?”

The chap pauses to jot something down in his notebook. “Officially, Wilkes, a dozen doors down the road.”

“Unofficially?”

“A Miss Smith of Hackney. Hand embroidery is a hobby of hers, and there’s something very… unworkmanlike about her work. She does simply amazing things on such a small canvas. Proceeds go to a cancer charity.”

“Do you have her address?” Curiosity may have killed the cat, but Crowley is craftier than any cat.

***

The existence of sewing machines doesn’t bother Crowley. The _ubiquity_ of sewing machines is another matter, as is the variety of attachments being invented to perform tasks that should properly be done by hand. He has half a mind to banish every single zipper foot out of existence. (Or send his scariest henchmen to confiscate them one by one; that might be more fun.) He can tolerate, even appreciate, new types of fastener, but in his view the tailor, not the tool, should always do the work.

So Miss Smith is a pleasure. She dyes her own thread, rehabilitates tarnished needles, and does some fabulous whitework.

She also charges two hundred quid a ‘chief, but he guesses that’s inflation for you. He’s been meaning to have a word with the Chancellor of the Exchequer about it, but the title keeps being passed on before he can get around to making an appointment. Things to do, souls to acquire. It’s always a buyer’s market, and he’s extremely motivated to buy.

Anyway, he hangs around London long enough to have the charming Miss Smith supply five handkerchiefs, the least of which will be a decided upgrade for the third-rate work he was obliged to throw out after that brief unpleasantness with the exploding prophet. Then he heads to Bangalore, because sometimes a man _doesn’t_ feel like Savile Row shoulders, and you just can’t go past the sub-continent for rapid, careful work in cheerful brights.

***

Crowley appreciates the genius of merrowing, multi-thread overlockers, and Coverlock, really he does. He remembers the excitement that greeted their earliest forebears’ arrival on the scene, oh, a hundred years ago or more. He also clearly recalls the dismay of arriving to collect new garments only to find unexpectedly machine-finished hems, as regular and souless as the train tracks now carving themselves deep into the landscape. He’d refrained from killing the hapless fools who’d misled him as to their techniques, but he _had_ insured they retained too few fingers to continue their disgraces of the tailoring trade.

***

For lazing around at home when there are no pressing matters of business to attend to, Crowley enjoys the occasional fair isle jumper or crocheted angora scarf. He does not, on the other hand, care much about socks, and mass-produced identical articles extruded by the thousands from some Taiwanese factory would suit him just fine—if only he didn’t so enjoy the facial expressions so frequently displayed by people attempting to turn heels on handfuls of slender knitting needles. If he ever grows tired of his minimalist Hell, he’s thinking of putting in a room where knitters invariably drop stitches during the last few rows of major projects and cannot, for all their wailing and care, recover. And Crowley might not have invented The Frog, the imaginary imp who travels from cross-stitcher to cross-stitcher forcing extensive unpicking, but he did name the little blighter and facilitate his work. (As a direct result, he once acquired a soul in exchange for ten years of fast, flawless Teresa Wentzler projects.)

A life which brings him into frequent contact with blood and other humours has led Crowley to seek out the best dry-cleaning professionals the world has to offer. He patronises establishments in Moscow and Mumbai, but prefers the dark little shop in Chicago where they ask him no tedious questions about the sources of stains. (He’d ask the local cross-roads demon about that, if he wasn’t absolutely positive that no one ever sold their soul for preternatural dry-cleaning abilities.)

All in all, maintaining proper attire requires Crowley to travel vast distances and conduct a great deal of research among the soulful human population. It’s really very time-consuming. Not all his employees really understand—there’s no IQ test to determine who gets to become a demon, after all—but he’s confident that few of his recently-arrived guests down in Hell would properly respect an underdressed overlord.

“Thank you, Mister Smith,” Crowley tells the solicitous young tailor, “this’ll do splendidly.” He strokes the pinstriped jacket’s left sleeve. “If you don’t mind, I’ll keep it on. I have a meeting to attend this afternoon…”

 

***END***


End file.
